This dynamic presentation showcases the early phases of an innovative collaboration between the Trans Realities Lab at Design Academy Eindhoven and HKU Utrecht's Artistic XR Lab.

Our session shows you how academic institutions might meaningfully connect physical and virtual spaces through XR technologies – operating across the SURF network – to deliver innovative new forms of educational collaboration.

We used the Trans Realities Lab's established ‘eXtended Reality-Intraverse Toolkit’ (XR-IT), a software platform that simplifies the creation and operation of on-demand high-fidelity coalesced spaces for geographically distanced collaboration in virtual worlds. This enabled us to test collaborative education scenarios between designers, game makers, scenographers, and theatre students.

We showcase an embodied multi-user workflow between Utrecht and Eindhoven as interdisciplinary teams design ‘The Hybrid Design Studio of the Future.’ Unpacking how art and design students and researchers collaboratively utilize MoCap, 3D scanning, and virtual object manipulation to ideate, design, and expand spatial narratives based on the limitations and affordances of the physical spaces of participation in each location. In each workshop session, we look – through the lens of design practice in its varied forms – at one question: how can such environments deliver more educational impact than that which might traditionally be achieved by one institution or by solo practice.

What do you get from this session?
- practical insights into the opportunities for interdisciplinary education across institutions in Metaverse type environments;

- insights into the potential impact of emerging Metaverse and Networked Virtual World technologies on future educational scenarios and design/delivery of future ‘campuses’.

The key message is that networked XR technology enables meaningful collaboration between separate physical educational spaces – in this case between Design Academy Eindhoven and HKU Utrecht. It allows students and researchers to work together across locations while preserving the tactile qualities of studio-based learning. This concrete example demonstrates how Metaverse type spaces can transform education: they create shared environments that transcend physical limitations while maintaining embodied experiential learning. Ultimately these environments provide a framework for future cross-institutional collaborative design education and potential applications in other fields.